ATLANTA -- Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has named former 11Alive anchor, reporter and managing Keith Whitney as the city's new director of communications.
The announcement came Friday morning. Bottoms also has named U.S. Army veteran Jon Keen as deputy COO. Interim director of constituent service Curtis Bailey was also appointed to the permanent position.
"I am truly excited that Keith has agreed to serve our administration," Bottoms said. "Over the past 25 years, he has built a reputation as one of Atlanta’s most highly regarded and trustworthy reporters and he will bring that same level of integrity to the city.”
Whitney was most recently on air as part of the news team at WGCL/CBS46 where he served as an anchor and reporter. Prior to that, he was a lead reporter, anchor and managing editor at WXIA-TV.
During his career, he has been recognized with multiple Emmy Awards, the Regional Edward R. Murrow Award for outstanding achievement in electronic reporting, multiple Atlanta Association of Black Journalist Awards and a Georgia Association of Broadcasters award for a series of stories documenting blight in Atlanta.
Keen is currently a manager with Deloitte Consulting, where he works with the company’s public sector team to identify new opportunities in the areas of strategy, innovation, digital transformation, analytics and marketing. Prior to that, he was a research and consulting fellow at the Roy and Lily Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
Keen served in both Italy and Afghanistan as a Captain in the United States Army and is currently president of the alumni board for Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.
Bailey started his career in customer service with the city's aviation department, also spending a number of years in the private sector before returning to public service as chief of staff for district 11 of the Atlanta city council, a seat held by Mayor Bottoms at that time.
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